An excerpt from article by KQUED. Read the full story here.

San Francisco police arrested over a hundred people in the city’s Mission District Saturday night at an annual “hill bomb” event, where skaters and bikers ride down Dolores Street.

Most of the individuals arrested were under 18 years old, and had been surrounded by police at the event and prevented from leaving — a law enforcement tactic known as “kettling.” This police action has prompted severe criticism from residents and officials alike — plus a possible lawsuit by nonprofit legal organization Partnership for Civil Justice.

“You have a right to be an onlooker on the street, as long as you’re not directly interfering in a police action,” Lederman said. “The police can’t just round everybody up. That’s what this sounds like, to me, happened on Saturday night, when they just simply kettled the kids in a number of different areas, by just closing off the block.”

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“This mass arrest was illegal as far as I’m concerned … There’s no guilt by association under the United States law or California law,” Lederman said. “And the police can’t just simply kettle people and arrest everyone in order to get rid of an event that they don’t like [which] in this case, happened to involve primarily children.”